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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Rafa's blood and our right to know what's in it

The sporting world is currently fixated on Alex Rodriguez andhis admission to having taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs backin the days when he was an innocent, confused, unthinking youngster of27 or 28. When he and an equally young, innocent, unthinking, andconveniently unnamed cousin jammed needles full of substances into eachother some 36 times, give or take a few jabs. And thanks to the scrutinyof Alex, the spotlight has not been as focused on a similar issuecurrently being discussed in the world of tennis.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has instituted a number of new rules in aneffort to reduce the likelihood of tennis players cheating their wayinto victory and history. Players are now required to report theirwhereabouts for at least one hour a day, seven days a week, to theirnational anti-doping organization. Testers may or may not show up duringthat hour. If they do, their arrival will be unannounced. And if aplayer fails to meet with testers on three separate occasions within any18-month period, they may be suspended from the sport.

I say "hurrah". It's about time. If baseball has taught us nothing else,it has shown us the level of protection that cheaters have enjoyed fromtheir unions, owners, management, and yes, even from the media. Some ofthese cheaters remained untouchable even as we watched them bulk upfaster than a force-fed chicken, and start looking ripped practicallyovernight.

Surprise testing is the only way to go. It's a sad fact but as long asthere is big money on the line, there are some who will do anything toget it. It's easy for those of us who are not wealthy to say that wewould never do certain things. But unless you've been placed in aposition where your values may be compromised for tremendous financialgain, you have no idea of your capacity for resisting perniciousinfluences. Forgive my cynicism for believing that few of us are immuneto temptation. We all have our inner Madoffs. One of the primarypurposes of religion is to give us the motivation to resist certain ofour baser human impulses. And where religion fails, the law is forced totake over.

What keeps the majority of us honest is the fear of being caught. Whatappears to have forced Alex Rodriguez' current verbal spillage is thefact of having been caught. That and possibly the tell-all book abouthim that will be coming out in a few months. I don't know if Mr.Rodriguez is a reader but someone needs to introduce him to the legendof Icarus and the dangers of flying too close to the sun.

But back to the world of tennis where Rafael Nadal, the #1 player in theworld and expected standard bearer, has denounced these new rules as aform of "persecution" that make him "feel like a criminal". My responseto this is to tell Snr. Nadal that you can only feel like a criminal ifyou are one. If you're innocent, you should be willing to piss in a cupat a moment's notice. I would also remind him that no one becomessuccessful without being highly organized. Even bottomfeeders can tellyou where they will be at 9 o'clock tomorrow. Having to organize yourschedule in advance is not too much of an imposition for keeping sportsclean. Earth to Nadal, it's our right to know if your blood is clean.

But Nadal is not alone in his protests. The recently bulked up AndyMurray has also spoken out against the new rules, calling them"draconian". And he's right. But you have to go draconian when peopleinsist on cheating. And if, as a player you do not cheat, then you wouldwant to welcome the rules even more. Not only do you not have a damnthing to worry about, but you know that the Petr Kordas of the sportwill be caught long before they scissor-kick their way into unfairlyearned victories.

I used to have a coach who insisted that tennis was clean. He believedthat the endurance nature of the sport made it nonsensical to useperformance-enhancing drugs that favor sudden bursts of energy. In vainI would argue that I was certain that there were labs that were alreadyworking on concoctions that favored the slow and continuous energyreleases needed to play hours and hours of tennis. He would laugh at medisparagingly. He had a degree in Sports Medicine. I was a lowly Ph.D.psychologist. What the heck did I know? Of course he was the firstperson I thought of calling when the Argentines started falling likeflies. Lucky for him I don't get off on saying "I told you so".

Tennis can take a page from the US military which has implemented manyefforts to reduce illegal drug use among service members. Command hasthe right to ask a soldier to piss in a cup at a moment's notice. And there'sno secret pissing either - your penis has to be directly observed as ittakes aim. And that's just for being a soldier. Think of how much moreis at stake for professional sportspersons.

Just as likely as it is that many registrar offices in Beijing wereprobably being purged to obfuscate the true ages of some of thosebaby-faced gymnasts who wowed us at the most recent Olympics, so is itlikely that lab techs are secretly hard at work coming up with more andmore substances that can remain undetected by testing. Which is why I soadmire Roger Federer for being one of the few top tennis players toendorse the need for these new regulations. I may rag on him but I doadore him.